Vendor Rankings

I am needing information to help sell my organization on Cisco. I was curious if anyone had a list of vendors by ranking or some sites that would be good refrences to these types of things. Basically, I just want to prove that Cisco is the best choice.

Replies

I don't have any documents, but perhaps I can give you an angle to the discussion.

It is likely that, in most categories of equipment / hardware / infrastructure, Cisco will not be the "top performer." In many, if not most cases, they are near the top somewhere, but there'll be some (usually) younger/newer/recently re-vamped company taking the #1 spot.

One of the prime reasons for "going Cisco" is the total umbrella they provide.

* They have stuff for nearly every technology, covering nearly every protocol, on every media worth sending data over

* They have a huge (relatively) efficient and (relatively) well-organized global support organization. There have been cases where myself or my co-workers have "followed the sun around the world" with Cisco support on a single ass-smashing issue ... and they stayed with me/us/the customer the entire time ... for whatever gripes may surface from time-to-time, an organization that big, that good, and that willing to hold a customer's hand (as necessary) is a rare find.

* Given the scope, depth, and quality of the service and support organizations, they are inexpensive by any measure. It would be very easy to build favorable cost/benefit comparison.

* There is a huge pool of trained Cisco professionals (also associates and experts).

The short story is that they have technology in every arena, they have excellent service and support, and finding "Cisco Smart" professionals is almost a trivial endeavor.

Extreme may be faster, 3com/Huawei might be cheaper, Alcatel may have more capacity for the real estate (and I'm not saying any of that is necessarily true, but that's the impression of many) ... but they all lack the "complete package" that Cisco brings to the table.

I have not worked on/with Juniper, so "no comment" from me in that regard.

I hope this helps you with your argument. Don't let others get you to focus on one element of the "big picture;" customer satisfaction relies on every facet, and even a minor failure at the wrong time from any aspect can cost you your reputation.